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While the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to characterize the national temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of initial surprise, grief and horror is segueing to fury and deep division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the banal instant opinions of those with inflammatory, polarizing views but little understanding at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a time when I lament not having a stronger faith. I lament, because believing in humanity – in our potential for compassion – has let us down so painfully. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and cultural solidarity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

In keeping with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid gloom), there was so much fitting reference of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and love was the essence of belief.

‘Our public places may not appear quite the same again.’

And yet segments of the Australian polity responded so nauseatingly swiftly with division, blame and accusation.

Some politicians moved straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a calculating opportunity to question Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the statements of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and scared and seeking the light and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were treated to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Of course, each point are true. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of clear azure skies above sea and shore, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem entirely familiar again to the many who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for understanding and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will seem more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these days of anxiety, outrage, sadness, confusion and grief we need each other now more than ever.

The reassurance of community – the binding force of the unity in the very word – is what we probably need most.

But tragically, all of the indicators are that unity in public life and society will be elusive this extended, draining summer.